Regarding the GeForce 8800 series, they all had the same reference heatsink, even the 8800 ultra used the same one as the others, the only thing that changed was the position of the fan and the plastic for decoration. I can say this with total certainty because I disassembled the heatsink of an 8800 GTS 320 and that of an ultra, and they both consist of 3 heatpipes, two flat ones, one of about 3 mm and the other of about 6 mm and a longer round one of about 6 mm that appears to be nickel plated. The aluminum sheets are 2.2 cm high at the widest part and 1 cm at the narrowest, spaced 21 mm apart.
In the case of the 8800 gts (https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce … 00-gts-320.c196) it is 143W to dissipate and in the case of the 8800 ultra (https:// www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-8800-ultra.c195) there are 171W to dissipate, here there is already a big problem because the same heatsink with a difference of 30W will not give good results in any way, and more when the heatsink wasn't enough for 143W, and this was well known by Nvidia engineers and also by the CEO.
Well, let's take as an example a CPU of the time with a reputation for being demanding with the heatsink due to its 125W: The Athlon X2 6000+ (https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD- Athlon%2064%20X2%206000+%20-%20ADV6000IAA5DO%20%28ADV6000DOBOX%29.html) On the CPU World page, in the comments, someone shared a picture of the heatsink that AMD supplied for that CPU, four heatpipes of 5 mm or 6 mm, I can't distinguish it in the image, and the height of the AMD heatsink is higher, and the density of the aluminum sheets is also much higher, and they are less separated, and also the fan is on top of the heatsink and covers the entire its surface.
What more samples are needed to know that Nvidia knew very well that their GPUs were not going to last long with the reference cooler, even if they had not had the problem of underfill and other things.
I wouldn't be surprised if we talk about the same problem again in a few years because we use a Noctua cooler (https://noctua.at/es/products/cpu-cooler-retail/nh-d15) that occupies half the box of the computer to cool a processor with a TDP between 180W and 220W and a graphics card with a TDP of 450W (https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-rtx-4090.c3889) uses a heatsink that barely has the same size, I don't know because I've never had a 4090 in my hand at the moment, but from the photographs I think I'm not wrong. But hopefully I'm wrong.
As for the consoles, I don't worry about them, since they are not of interest to me, but surely they could have had better cooling.
I give as an example a modification that I already mentioned to the heatsink of a laptop, in laptops the space is very limited. I added a second heatpipe and made an all copper contact plate.
This type of modification by adding a heatpipe is quite common, I also did it with my M17XR3's CPU cooler and now the processor goes into turbo mode easily and the fan is much quieter.
If I did it for a laptop, there are many more capable people than me who would be able to make a better cooler for consoles.

Hoping wrote on 2023-02-26, 11:03:

Regarding the GeForce 8800 series, they all had the same reference heatsink, even the 8800 ultra used the same one as the others, the only thing that changed was the position of the fan and the plastic for decoration. I can say this with total certainty because I

Quadro FX 5600 had more beefy cooler, which hovers mostly around 80C. And Quadro FX4600, despite using stock 8800GTS, cooler has working temperature around 70C. I suspect that Nvidia had to undervolt their professional cards, so they won't die after one year of heavy abuse. Anecdotally, I would choose Quadros over any regular G80 card. But that's still very much the bumpgate silicon, so it's not some silver bullet.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-02-26, 16:48:

Hoping wrote on 2023-02-26, 11:03:

Regarding the GeForce 8800 series, they all had the same reference heatsink, even the 8800 ultra used the same one as the others, the only thing that changed was the position of the fan and the plastic for decoration. I can say this with total certainty because I

Quadro FX 5600 had more beefy cooler, which hovers mostly around 80C. And Quadro FX4600, despite using stock 8800GTS, cooler has working temperature around 70C. I suspect that Nvidia had to undervolt their professional cards, so they won't die after one year of heavy abuse. Anecdotally, I would chose Quadros over any regular G80 card. But that's still very much the bumpgate silicon, so it's not some silver bullet.

The pro series on the majority of the market have a longer warranty, and this may explain the longer useful life. Generally speaking, any pro-line computer lasts many years. I gave my dad an old dell precision m6500, i7 620qm with 16gb ddr3 1060mhz, and even after 13 years, it's still a nimble notebook, perfectly usable for any day to day task, and never had any problems (well, recently the card video has been failing to start the driver, but I find it acceptable after 13 years of hard work). He has an fx3800M, which I think is somewhere between 9800gt and gtx260m. In all these years the machine was opened only 2 times for cleaning and changing the thermal grease